NYAFF ’13: Comrade Kim Goes Flying

The North Korean film authorities must love training montages.  You will find conspicuous examples in Pak Chong-song’s Centre Forward as well as this strange new North Korean-European co-production.  Granted, that is not a very large sampling, but it is not like there is room for much aesthetic diversity with the powers-that-be.  The production values have improved, but the dialogue is as stilted as ever in Kim Gwang-hun, Nicholas Bonner, and Anja Daelemans’ Comrade Kim Goes Flying (trailer here), which screens today during the 2013 New York Asian Film Festival.

Viewers will quickly realize Flying is a fantasy because characters constantly sit down to big traditional meals.  In between smashing daily production quotas, coalminer Kim Yong-mi dreams of being an acrobat in the Pyongyang Circus.  Her gruff father sounds a little like Casey Kasem, telling her to “keep her feet on the ground and her head out of the clouds.”  However, when Comrade Kim is temporarily transferred to the Pyongyang construction brigade, she jumps at a chance to audition for the Circus School.

Unfortunately, the circus elites do not appreciate her raw talent and enthusiasm.  Initially deflated, her spirit rebounds when Commander Sok Gun, the kindly foreman, enlists her to train a troupe of construction worker-acrobats.  Witnessing the salt-of-the-earth workers’ performance, Pak Jang-phil, the stuck-up trapeze strongman, realizes how much he and the circus need her.  When she finally gets her shot, will Comrade Kim be able to endure the rigorous training and make the final cut?

Obviously, Flying is an odd film, particularly given the open portrayal of class conflict between the scrappy workers and the snobby circus performers.  You might have thought the DPRK was a unified workers’ paradise, but evidently not.  In that case, just what have the Great Leader, the Dear Leader, and the Great Successor been doing all this time?

On the plus side, Flying is a much more polished film than Centre Forward.  Hwang Jin-sok’s candy-colored cinematography is rather appealing and the battery of co-directors keeps the action moving along quite spritely.  The brief animated sequences, adapted from old school North Korean socialist realist wood-cuts (of which co-director Bonner is considered the world’s leading collector) are also quite striking.  Nevertheless, the propaganda-laden dialogue, brimming with worker solidarity rhetoric and praise for the Party, just clunks along like an old jalopy.

Having recently reviewed Marc Wiese’s harrowing Camp 14—Total Control Zone, one hesitates to single out any of the cast for praise, in the fear it might somehow be used against them.  After all, any bourgeoisie association can be lethal in the DPRK police state.  In general terms, many of the cast members are veterans of the Pyongyang Circus, who have real credibility in their acrobatic scenes and transition fairly well into dramatic acting.  Those who really must be charming for the film to work are indeed quite winning and attractive.  One of several cast and crew members officially designated a “People’s Artist,” Ri Yong-ho is a particularly strong and engaging presence as the sensitive hardhat, Sok Gun.

Evidently, women’s stories are largely under-represented in North Korean cinema, so Comrade Kim can be considered progressive on that front.  It is always nice to see an underdog triumph over adversity, especially when it is rendered with energy and bright colors. 

Indeed, it is good for North Korea watchers to get a gander at the film, like old Kremlinologists leafing through an issue of Soviet Life.  However, presenting it without a reality check is a tad problematic.  In contrast, the 2011 Korean American Film Festival offered a more robust and informed picture of the notoriously closed country by programming Centre Forward on a double bill with Mads Brügger’s mid-blowing comedic expose Red Chapel.  Comrade Kim Goes Flying boasts a fresh-faced, highly likable cast, but the didactic script often undermines their efforts.  Recommended for curious audiences experienced in parsing propaganda, it screens this afternoon (7/5) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s NYAFF.

KAFFNY ’11: Centre Forward

The “Fatherly Leader” loved the sight of young comrades physically exerting themselves in the open arena. Of course, the consequences of losing were rather permanent in “Juche” sports. Fortunately, Kim Il-sung also had ideas on cinema that prohibited any inconvenient realism. As a result, North Koreans had a steady diet of propaganda films, including Pak Chong-song’s oddly watchable Centre Forward (trailer here), which screens at the 2011 Korean American Film Festival on a double bill with Mads Brügger’s reality check Red Chapel.

After several frustrating years as a scrub, Cha In-son finally gets a chance to start for the Taesongsan football team. Unfortunately, he is so keyed-up, he pretty much stinks up the field. Shortly thereafter, he and his entire family are consigned to a prison camp. The end. Actually, not in this sanitized portrayal of DPRK. Instead, Cha’s awful performance sets of a round of recriminations and self-criticism that would be out of place in any healthy society.

Basically, the Taesongsan coach decides his team lost because everyone got too fat and complacent, so he institutes a bone-crushing new training program, making Cha one popular fellow. He does not get much sympathy from his sister Myong-suk either, because as dancer in the elaborate propaganda productions staged on behalf of the Kim personality cult, she works harder than any of the football slackers.

Anyone waiting for a romance to blossom between Cha’s superstar roommate Chol-gyu and his sister Myong-suk better forget it. Centre is not merely chaste, it is neutered. There is only one person getting any love in this film, but he never appears directly. However, plenty of rousing songs are sung in Kim’s honor.

There is no question Centre is propaganda bearing little or no resemblance to the truth. Everyone is robustly vital and all the shops are amply stocked. Yet, it is bizarrely fascinating to watch this Rocky unfold with all its idiosyncrasies, while knowing it all takes place in one of the most isolated, repressive regimes in the world. At times, it is downright surreal, like the cut-away shots of the Taesongsan team suddenly riding a roller coaster in their Sunday best amidst their final training montage. (Aren’t they supposed to win the big game before going to Kim Il-sung-Land?) Still, the young actress playing Myong-suk is quite good, still coming across endearingly sweetly as she busts Cha’s chops for his insufficient zeal.

Although obviously stilted, a film like Centre is well worth screening, if it is presented in the proper context. Fortunately, KAFFNY gives equal time to Mads Brügger’s Red Chapel (trailer here), a bracing dose of truth. Ostensively, Brügger came to North Korea with two Danish Korean comedians, Simon Jul Jørgensen and Jacob Nossell, to stage a good will show. However, his real intent was to expose the oppressive nature of DPRK system.

As soon as the Danes arrived in the North, their minder, Mrs. Pak, stuck to them like glue. Her response to the Nossell was particularly unnerving, almost smothering the wheelchair-bound comedian with attention. However, even Mrs. Pak could not fake an enthusiastic response to the program the comedians had prepared. Featuring skits in drag and an unclassifiable rendition of Oasis’s “Wonderwall,” it was not just bad, it was awe-inspiringly awful.

While Chapel is at times a riotous exercise in comedic performance art, the overall film is as serious as a missile attack. The pathological nature of DPRK society weighed particularly heavily on Nossell (all too aware of the suspicious absence of North Koreans disabled in any way), causing frequent rifts between him and the director.

Though he makes a noble effort, Brügger fails to capture the smoking gun scene that would utterly lay bear North Korea’s tyranny. Of course, he was doomed from the start, because the Communists set all the rules and could change them at their convenience. Still, they are plenty of telling moments, as well as some truly outrageous humor. Indeed, Chapel compliments and counterbalances Centre quite effectively. Together, they will make for a mind-blowing night of film this coming Saturday (3/19). However, the final word of the DPKR should go to John Arlotto’s poignant short film Deface, which also screens at this year’s KAFFNY (review to come).